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ED 070 682 SO 002 070

AUTHOR Mosher, Ralph L.
TITLE Objectives of Training Programs for Secondary School
Teachers of Psychology.
PUB DATE
NOTE 71 ,

EDRS PRICE 9p.; Paper presented at Annual Meeting, American
DESCRIPTORS Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., 1971

0

MF-$0.65 HC -$3.29
*Behavioral Sciences; *Educational Objectives;
*Psychology; Secondary Education; *Social Sciences;
*Teacher Education

ABSTRACT
Basic assumptions of this paper are that psychology

should be and will be taught in American high schools. Two basic
arguments for teaching pre-college psychology are to teach students
the scientific method and to familiarize students about ways in which
human beings develop and behave, in the long run upgrading human
potential. Rather than a survey course, it is suggested that several
elective courses be offered. Main objectives of training programs for
secondary school teachers of psychology are to not only prepare
teachers academically for subject mastery but, moreover, to be able
to help students apply and personalize the principles of psychology;
to train teachers in pedagogical skills; to educate teachers in the
knowledge of adolescent growth and behavior so they will be sensitive
to personal concerns of students; and to develop- and evaluate
-psychology curriculum. Most importantly psychology should have an
educational effect on the adolescent. (SJM)

c\J DRAFT U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH.
EDUCATION & WELFARE
4:3 OFFICE OF EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO-
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CATION POSITION OR POLICY.

OBJECTIVES-OF TRAINING PROGRAMS
FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS OF PSYCHOLOGY

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rt

Ralph L. Mosher
Associate Professor
Harvard Graduate School of Education

FUMED FROM BEST AVAILABLE CSEK.

Paper for Division Two and E &-T Board
American Psychological Association

Washington, 1971

ft`

1

I would like to begin with several assumptions about the teaching of

psychology at the secondary school level. First, psychology increasingly

will be taught in American high schools. There are several reasons for this:

1) It is already happening. Like Topsy, psychology in high school has grown
and continues to do so. 2) Yet psychology still represents a relative
novelty in the curriculum of the average secondary school and novelty, per se,
is attractive. That both novelty and mystique attach to "psychology" in the
perception of many high school students (and teachers) is a motivational

fact. 'Whether this is an interest in psychology for the "wrong" reasons is
not the point. The issue is the kinds of programs and teaching in psychology
developed as a response to this and by whom. 3) Part of the impetus for

teaching psychology in high school comes as extension of the curriculum
reform movements in mathematics, science and social studies in the 1960's.

The effect of that movement was largely to rationalize the existing

secondary school curriculum, i.e. to produce academically up-to-date versions

r, of the traditional high school subjects. There noware pressures from a

t number of sources for genuinely new curricula and subjects for the secondary

school. Interest in psychology derives from both sources, i.e. curriculum

maintenance and curriculum reformulation. 4) The profession of psychology

now is asserting an-interest in the teaching of psychology at the "pre-college

.level." One effect of this w be to accelerate the teaching of psychology

in the high School. .

tausLet me add a further assumption. Psychology should be

pecondary schools. There are at least two.arguments for doing so. One is

that we should teach psychology as a way to teach the scientific method,
i.e. .how to think logically and empirically about (human) behavior. My

colleague, ptofesaOr Spriathall, terms this the "logical positivist"

position. In teaching psychology we contribute to the adolescent's cognitive

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development and introdnee him to the scientific method as applied to
the study of (human) behavior. This objective in teaching psychology
is quite analogous.to 'hat argued on behalf of the biology and physical
sciences curricula in high school. The degree to which those fields
have escaped accountability on this claim augurs for an extended
period of grace for psychology too - which is probably all for the
best. There is a certain irony for me in psychologists offering
themselves as models of rationality (or of psychiatrists offering

themselves as models of tranquility).
A second reason for teaching psychology in high school is the

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George Miller argument that we should "give psychology away." Psychology
is one significant source of intelligence about how human beings
develop and behave. High schools, in their pre-occupation with
cognitive development through academic subjects, have been woefully
deficient in providing syStematic educational experiences to affect
ego, ethical, and aesthetic development. This deficiency seems parti-
cularly inexcusable during adolescence, with its particular developmental
tasks of identity formation, the development of ethical judgement, etc.
Psychology can offer more than codified knowledge about the course of
human development. I believe it can also offer contexts in which it is
possible to incorporate powerful correlative learning experience.
For example, not only is it possible to teach principles of child
development to adolescents, it also is possible to have them validate
aud personalize some of that.Pabstract" learning by working as nursery
school teachers. Similarly, eduCational psychology can be taught to
high school students in conjunction with.student teaching in a variety

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role taking and competency development in adolescence.
While I personally believe the Niller position has the wider

applicability to the secondary school, I support both the "logical
positivist" and the "give psychology away" arguments. It would be a
serious mistake to reproduce the vitiating history of doctrinal
disputes in psychology in the development of curricula for the secondary
school. Rather, curriculum development work should be sponsored which
incorporates different assumptions, objectives, materials and procedures
in teaching high school psychology. Let high school teachers and
especially students elect. Some high school students will want an
experience of Rsychology as essentially cognitive, abstract and
methodological. They should have that experience. For a larger number
of students I believe psychology has particular potential to combine
respectable intellectual inquiry with applications of psychology in real
roles. Students should be able to have that experience of psychology
as well. For these reasons I oppose one introductory survey course
in high school. I think we might learn something from the usual
reputation of such courses at the college level. The purposes of high
school psychology are different from those at the college level. I worry
very much, however, that high school psychology will become an intro-
ductory survey course largely academic, broad in coverage and without

significant experiences by which adolescents can validate psychology.
Now I want to turn directly to the topic: the objectives of

training programs for secondary school teachers of psychology. First,
let me say that the prio5 main fihmadWom problem is to develop and
evaluate curricula in psycholosa for the secondary school. In brief,
I think we need to support over the next 5-8 yearc a number of curriculum

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operating and "tested" examples of what we mean by teaching psychology
in high school - .what kinds of psychology; what instructional materials,
with what outcomes or effects - be Fire involving. ourselves substantially
in teacher training. I will say 'more about this presently. But sooner
or later, of course, the problem becomes one of teacher training,
i.e. how do we prepare the teachers of psychology for the secondary schools?

In this respect, I feel that training programs should have

four main objectives. These are:
1) Subject matter "mastery" in psychology

2) Pedagogical skill

3) Knowledge of adolescents
4) The ability to develop and evaluate curriculum.
Let me talk briefly about each of these objectives in the training of

secondary schoolteachers of psychology. I personally will

e

1) Subject matter "mastery" in psychology.

stipulate this issue of the academic preparation of high school teachers

of psychology. Such teachers should have a major or its equivalent in
one field of psychology, a minor.in another field of psychology would be

a decided asset. I am'really less interested in the particular specialty.
My feeling is that a major concentration in developmental psychology

in educational psychology, social psychology, personality theory, etc.
may be more broadly applicable to high school curricula and teaching

than a concentration in physiological or experimental psychology.

However, I think it is too early in the game to obsess over this kind

of issue. My reasons for stressing academic preparation are the
conventional ones: It is obvious that one cannot teach well what

he does not know. The high school teacher of pSychology should

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point in hie special field. In specifying academic requirements for certi-
fication, psychology will simply follow the pattern of other subject fields
currently taught in high school. In my own priorities, a thorough knowledge
of the subject matter is a critical prerequisite to another objective I value
highly: i.e. hearing and helping adolescents to apply, to personalize the
principles of psychology they are learning. For example, in our own work
in teaching child development and counseling psychology to high school
students, we have found it very important for the teacher to feel thoroughly
conversant and comfortable with the essential subject matter in order to be
able to respond to the adolescents as they try to integrate and apply this

knowledge to their own ex erience and situation.
2) It may be stating the obvious to say that high school teachers

of psychology must be trained to teach. While we do not know, in any
definitive sense, how to define, measure or train for teaching effectiveness,

there is a pedagogical craft which can be taught. I have devoted some
15 years of my professional life to training teachers and counseling
psychologists and I make this assertion about a craft pedagogy with considerable
confidence. I also am cynical that any teacher training program or university
is committed to quality, teacher training, i.e. to creating optimum conditions
for training teachers. Perhaps in the case of psychology it can be
different. Arthough the focus in this symposium is on objectives in training
programs I have made assertions about how to do it. Let me specify briefly
some of the elements I think should be present in a significant program
preparing teachers for practice: a) The number of trainees should
be kept relatively small. For example, any program with more than a hun-
dred pre-service teachers probably, will exceed substantially the resources

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available for their adequate practical training. b) Any training program
will have to develop, i.e. train a cadre of "master teachers" whose
principal job will be systematically to supervise student teaching in
psychology. In my experience these people are crucial and far superior
in inducting people into the craft than reliance on Flander's interaction analy-
sis, "micro-teaching" on related procedures for pre-service training. Master
teachers will use such instructional procedures but transcend them as well.
c) The training program should pay such resident superisors from student
tuition and pay them well? (e.g. $500. per student teacher). d) There should
be a concentration of training resources. For example, master teachers and
student teachers should be concentrated in teams and/or in special summer
schools.

3) Righ school teachers of psychology must have knowledge of
adolescents and personal sensitivity to them. Whether such teachers wish it
or not, students will turn to them with personal concerns. It is clear that
I believe the psychology teacher's response to high school students as people
and to their personal concerns is fully as crucial a part of his job as is
communication of formal principles of psychology. ye should have training
to help him in this respect. The study of adolescent psychology and systematic
training in counseling or communications training as developed by Carkhuff
are possibilities. The particular curriculum in this respect is less
important to me than the patent need for high school teachers of psychology
to be able to respond to some of the personalidevelopmental needs of adolescents.

4) A fourth training objective is the ability to develop and evaluate
curriculum. Earlier I said that the main immediate problem confronting
high school psychology is the need to develop and evaluate various curricula
and to train teachers in that process. Since the field of high school

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development work of this kind in conjunction with the initial training
programs established. In effect, teachers would have an opportunity
to teach ane field test various materials of instruction rs they were
being developed. But even, when relatively definitive curricula in high
school psychology have been introduced on a fairly wide scale I still
feel that teachers should have some training in the process of conceptualizing
new curricula or courses, transfiiing those ideas into materials and educa-
tional experiences and evaluating the effects of such courses. To be rather
continually analyzing the content and theimiethod of one's teaching is an
essential mechanism to keep the teaching and the teacher intellectually
alive. Participation in curriculum development projects is especially
significant if the training program is directed at in-service or experienced
high school teachers. Probably the most effective way to get such teachers
to consider how they teach is to involve them in the active re-formulation
and field testing of what they teach (i.e. the curriculum).

Let me say a bit more about the special problems of training
programs for experienced teachers. High school psychology is presently
the captive of the home economics or the social studies curriculum. There'
are, I think, "political," curricular and personnel consequences of this.
Politically, psychology programs will not start totally de novo. There will
be a jurisdictional problem, although I think that most home economics,
social studies teachers and guidance counselors will welcome carefully
developed curricula in psychology: But psychology in the high school at
first may be a ward of established curricula areas. In regard to personnel,
the point issthat teachers who are now teaching psychology may expect to
continue to do so. For them, in-service training programs are necessary.
This means money and in fairly large amounts.

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The experience of curriculum development projects in other disciplines
is that it is possible to teach experienced teachers more of the particular
subject. matter and little else. Certainly additional graduate level training
in psychology will be necessary for many experienced teachers. I have already
referred to the importance of training in curriculum development and evaluation
for this group. Similarly, I would train some experienced teachers as
master teachers or supervisors-or pre-service trainees. Finally, training
in personal sensitivity to adolescents is as important for the experienced

teacher as for the beginner.
Let me finish with a few general observations about training objectives.

First, we can learn from history in the field of teacher education. The
problem,in training-high school teachers of psychology will not be the
adequacy of their academic preparation. That the university can do. The
problem is much more whether there is a will to provide an adequate preparation
for teaching and a comprehensive high school curriculum in psychology. There
will be a tendency to assume that the essential objective is to produce
academically respectable curriculum and teaching in high school psychology.
For many university psychologists that is all there is to it. For some
schoolmen, too, Advanced Placement or Introductory Psychology will be enough.
If the objective is to teach psychology as an additional academic discipline
in high school then the means to that end are available if tostly.

Obviously, my own view is that psychology should not settle for this

limited, "respectable" objective. True education is the stimulation of

development. A.Ppsychology can contribute to cognitive development. But

in adolescence there is also the whole movement of ego development which in-
clu4es "the structure of the zclf-concept, of identity, moral judgement develop-
ment,,aesthetic development, etc. It is here, I believe, that high school